


PMF Cure

by StumblingBlock



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And Later There Will Be, Awkward Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mostly Because Wade Can't Resist L'appel du Vide, Sassy Peter, Scientist Peter, Wade Is Preoccupied With Food, Wade Wilson Breaking the Fourth Wall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 09:08:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6148579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StumblingBlock/pseuds/StumblingBlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wade knows better than to take cures from strange scientists, but it's like the whole universe is telling him to trust this Dr. Parker guy.  Including Spider-man.</p>
<p>And we <i>all</i> know how Wade feels about Spiderman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here's the other story I'm doing things with.
> 
> Terrible things.
> 
> Hey, at least it's not a songfic.
> 
> *PMF totally stands for presidential management fellows program. Yep.

Pain was kind of like a light switch.  


When Wade felt it, boom! On and he was alive again. When he didn’t feel it, he’d found something fun to do earlier, _**clandestine winking**_.  


Or, you know, someone had gotten a headshot in.  


**[Details.]**   


But you had to respect the classics. And jumping off the roof of other people’s buildings was basically like brushing your teeth when you were a mutated mercenary freak. Except bad for your teeth, and doing it kind of defeated the purpose of digestion, but other than that, _exactly the same_.  


_{We should start writing these ideas down. For posterity.}_   


Step aside, dear Abby. Wade Wilson was on the case.  


Back to the matter at hand, though: the whole Wade Wilson experience had a couple of non-negotiable trademarks. Post-death snacking, for one thing. For another, there was supposed to be a linearity of thought between one click of the light switch and the next, so when Wade woke up this time, his first thought understandably was h _oly shit, this trash heap is clean_. The second, Wade having pried an eye open all the way, was _fuck_.  


Not a trash heap. Not a dumpster. Definitely not a clothes line, like the one time he’d missed the ground. The sight spawned multiple little baby fucks, because instantly, the boxes echoing Wade’s sentiment.  


**[Fuck.]**   


_{Fuuuuuuck.}_   


**[We’re in a hospital.]**   


_{A goddamn hospital. We have rights!}_   


Ever the more pragmatic of the two, White asserted, **[Gun. No witnesses. Swan dive through window.]**  


That would work for Wade, but there was no one available to be shot. There _was_ a lot of polished white tile and chromed out walls and—oh, look, a bay window for him to make a swan dive through. The boxes would appreciate that, and no one ever turned down a nice scenic view before a bloody defenestration; Wade just wished he could enjoy it. Instead, he was doing his best impression of a really, really pissed off mercenary slapping his hands all over himself and shouting, “Where the hell are my guns?!”  


_{What? Our arms are gone?}_   


**[The other guns.]**   


_{Ohhh.}_   


Wade patted carefully over the suit, but no dice.  


No guns either, dammit.  


 _{But we like to have guns when we wake up in medical strange facilities…}_  


**[KILL. EVERYTHING. WITH OUR MIND.]**   


The ammo clips weren’t in his pouches. His katanas were noticeably absent—not just the blades, but the sheaths and the harnesses used to hold them in place. Yeah, those hadn’t fallen out of his pockets on the way down. His shit had been stolen! What kind of assholes just went ahead and looted corpses—okay, yeah, this was New York. Question answered. Wade could hear the little click- _crack_ of dislocating knuckles as his fists tightened.  


“Somebody’s up and about,” a new voice chirped, out of place in Wade’s panic in the most dramatic way.  


**[We’ve got company. Inbound, two o’clock.]**  


Wade glowered in the appropriate direction. There was a stiff—and the wall to his right was soundlessly folding in on itself to admit said stiff. _That_ was nifty. It looked kind of like the gleaming, fancy version of a guy getting punched in the nuts—  


**[This visual was brought to you by violent video games and methylone.]**   


—which was vastly cooler than some dipshit with nerd glasses.  


_{Glasses, huh?}_   


Boring. Nondescript. Probably had never tried anything but vanilla ice cream.  


Man, that wall.  


**[We’re in your head. We know where you’re looking.]**   


Oh fine.   


So what if some apple pie wonder was strutting inside? You could probably statistically determine how many people would sell their souls for the gleaming white-toothed smile being flaunted in Wade’s direction, but Wade was seasoned in this sort of thing. All these luscious locks trying to goad Wade into thinking of them as ‘chocolatey’. None of that mattered beyond the guy being way too pretty to be up to anything good.   


Without any warning, apple pie’s smile crumpled in on itself. Wade blamed the lurch in his stomach on gun separation anxiety.  


“…And I have no idea why I just said that. Okay, do-over. This time with less talking like I’ve suddenly turned into my aunt. Hi—“ Apple pie coughed and gave an awkward little half-wave, which failed to commit between greeting and glasses adjustment. It looked like pitiful flailing. “You might be feeling a little disoriented. You kind of tripped. Off a building.”  


Wade continued to stare. Credit for originality, this was a new tactic. None of the usual dickbags had ever tried to intimidate him with nerd before.   


_{The lab coat just makes it worse. It would be more convincing on a puppy.}_  


**[Proof that wielding a clipboard is not actually capable of making some people look smarter.]**  


_{Wait are we insulting him or is this foreplay? Do we need to rate him? 7/10 would bang?}_  


**[Why not both?]**  


“Banging and shooting are completely separate,” Wade muttered under his breath, “Because one of them is a sure thing and the other is only an idle thought. Priorities.”  


“Um,” said apple pie, clutching at his clipboard.   


Wade jerked his thumb at the heart monitor, no-nonsense, “You have fifteen seconds to return my shit before I beat your skull in with that.”   


Apple pie’s mouth fell open, and as long as these allegations of banging were hanging around, it really was a very nice mouth.   


Wade, who had priorities, resorted to adding, “It’ll take about two hits.”   


“Wow,” apple pie said after a moment, “You are so not a morning person.”  


“Babe, I’m a twenty-four hour marathon,” Wade corrected, because banter was the only other reflex readily available. He wondered if the heart monitor had anything pointy buried in it somewhere. Pointy things made him feel better.  


And like he could sense Wade trying to talk himself out of his murder, apple pie just had to blurt out, “I can cure you!”  


Wade snorted. For a punch line, that sucked. It wasn’t like the mask didn’t get torn up when Wade did stuff like this, so he didn’t go around wreaking havoc on the passerby. But his mask had weathered the last fall pretty well, so the notion of apple pie sticking his fucking nose where it didn’t belong hit Wade in the gut like a sledgehammer. People liked to claim they could cure Wade.   


For some reason, they thought holding that over his head would prevent him from killing them.  


“I’m serious. Only disregard that thing I just said because that’s the kind of thing that people say right before they turn into a raging lizard monster, which I’m not, I swear. I’m not a bad guy… which isn’t at all what a bad guy would say, oh god, _I’m making it worse_. Look, can you please just—“  


Wade swung the heart monitor up one handed, listening to one last dwindling beep as the electrical cords tore out of the wall. Apple pie cringed. With his shoulders. Like limbo, only his feet didn’t move, and he just kind of hissed through his teeth in defense.  


**[Ineffectual.]**  


_{Calling bullshit on Bambi’s survival instincts.}_  


“Hey, your weapons are one room away!” Apple pie exclaimed, all wide-eyed and too dumb to live. “We only removed them because we thought you might kind of panic waking up in a new place—fears I now see were _totally unfounded_ —“ he added, as Wade advanced, “—but you can have them back! Informing you about this procedure was kind of non-voluntary because of, well—but the rest of it is totally voluntary! Including the part where you can voluntarily decide to put that piece of equipment down and not break it and maybe just talk, please?” He gave his clipboard a forlorn little wave.  


It was more interesting to Wade, though, that he still hadn’t backed away from the angry guy wanting to bludgeon him into a pancake.  


**[He could be pretending to be harmless.]**  


_{Or a naïve dreamboat doctor to sweep us off our feet!}_ Because this was the kind of bullshit Yellow insisted on a regular basis.  


**[Please. If anyone’s doing the sweeping—]**   


Wade narrowed his eyes, focusing past the clamoring voices. “You just kidnapped a mercenary and now you want an interview? About what, the finer points of shooting a motherfucker?” His voice lowered to a growl, “Buddy, what gives you the idea that you’re going to survive the next five minutes?”  


Apple pie offered up a crooked, wincing sort of smile. “I’m not threatening _you_?”  


Wade nudged him with the edge of the heart monitor pointedly. “Because you could, huh?”  


This got him an eye-roll.  


_{Well I never!}_  


“This is Stark Tower,” apple pie said, and Wade heard more than felt the thunk of his clipboard bumping against the heart monitor. “Probably no one should be threatening anyone. It puts Captain Rogers in a mood.”  


“Let me guess,” Wade sniped, because he’d seen Avengers tower before, “You’re also a superhero and you have a girlfriend who lives in Canada.”  


_{Maybe we met her!}_  


**[Maybe we kidnapped her and this is revenge.]**  


_{Plot twist!}_  


“No. Look, I work with Dr. Banner,” apple pie said, with this sort of slow patience that probably meant sarcasm. Wade’s arms were full of heart monitor, so he couldn’t exactly cross them right now, but he thought about it very strongly. Perhaps he should set the machine down, he thought, and then was instantly horrified. “Dr. Peter Parker, PHD. I’d shake your hand, but you’re trying to threaten me with a metal box.”  


Wade looked down at the heart monitor. He looked back at the apple pie, determined that Peter was indeed a nerdy name, and then declared, “I’m threatening.”  


“Your fists are ten times more threatening than that,” Peter explained, “You chose literally the least menacing object in the room.”  


“Hey, I could make it threatening,” Wade protested, but alright, Peter had found his one true weakness. Banter. His shoulders relaxed, and simultaneously, his wounded pride surfaced. Wade hadn’t had a lot to work with. His katanas had been wrongfully removed from his personage. His guns had been gun-napped.  


_{They’re probably cold and alone.}_  


**[Yeah, what happened to the plan about killing this guy dead?]**  


Wade scowled at Peter ominously.  


Peter was giving him that awkward little (gorgeous) smile again.  


“I could intimidate the shit out of you, if I wanted,” Wade decided. Peter nodded reassuringly.  


“Absolutely. Hey, but while you do that, maybe I could tell you about the program we’re offering here? And return your weapons. Still sorry about that.” He brandished the clipboard a little more. “Freaking you out wasn’t part of my evidently evil master plan.”  


Wade sighed dramatically. He did contemplate flinging the heart monitor at the floor as hard as he could just to see what interesting things that did to Peter’s face. Instead he shuffled over to the bed and dumped it into the mattress before spinning around, leaning directly into Peter’s space. “Pamphlets.”  


“Um,” Peter said. His eyebrows scrunched. “We don’t have any? I could get some.”  


The boxes conferred briefly. White subsided, reluctantly.  


**[Okay, he’s probably harmless.]**  


“Pamphlets are a nine on the douchebag scale.” Wade swung an arm around Peter's shoulders, making the command decision to propel them towards the amazing folding-wall. Peter gave a little squeak of alarm and hugged his clipboard to his chest, taking two steps to every stride of Wade’s. “This is the clearest sign of your moral alignment that I could have been presented with. I mean, no pamphlets, _and_ sarcasm in the face of danger? You either hang with the lippiest environmentalists ever, or you’re somebody’s doe-eyed sidekick. I don’t have to shoot either of those.”  


**[His superpower is probably wearing magic glasses or something.]**  


_{Hey, he might rock a skintight suit. You never know!}_  


“Um,” Peter choked slightly, failing to burrow out from under Wade’s arm as the mercenary mercilessly adjusted his hold. “Yeah. Let’s go with that.”  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Certainty that this writing is awful: 53%
> 
> Certainty of varying mental states making this difficult to assess: 220%
> 
> Certainty of intending to blame everything on how incredibly sick I am right now: ERROR, MATHEMATIC LIMITS EXCEEDED

“So, conclusively, the competitive military presence can only destabilize the region further.” Wade gestured expansively to make his point, “Which is why it’s time someone assassinates the president.”

“Um,” said Peter, still trapped under Wade’s arm.

**[Small talk, Wade. _Small_ talk.]**

_{My brain is trying to invert into another dimension out of boredom.}_

“Fuck you guys.” Wade beamed at his captive. “He’s a scientist! Intellectual topics are his jam. Isn’t that right, Dr. Parker?”

“Um.”

“Want to talk about Serbia next?”

“Um,” said Peter a third time, “We’re here.”

Wade cocked his head.

**[That’s a door.]**

_{How long have we been stopped short and making polite conversation at a door?}_

**[…Long enough.]**

They’d sallied forth into an empty gray hallway first, in Wade’s defense. It had looked longer at first glance.

“Do you mind if I…?” Peter held Wade with an exponentially patient look. “It’s a retinal scan.”

Wade heard, _{Quick, smell his hair before he goes!}_ , so Wade wisely stepped back. He was well-versed in ignoring the 24-hour fount of bad advice that was Yellow. “Yeah, sure. Do your go-go gadget eyeballs things and I’ll just be standing over here. Minding my own business. Thinking about Serbia—“

“Done,” Peter said, straightening back up. Wade couldn’t help but think it was a bit excessive. First wall-camouflaged secret doors and now there had to be metal vault doors that sprang open like the jaws of death? Someone was compensating. As he led them inside, Peter’s arm swept wide, probably intended as a) welcoming or b) wonder-inducing, but instead he smacked it into some giant metal contraption just behind the door, and then his sleeve stuck. “Crud,” Peter muttered, and abandoned his clipboard on the table to try to work his lab coat free.

This left Wade to observe the natural habit of a wild nerd herd. In contrast to the sterile corridors outside, in here cascades of paper and clustered coffee mugs decorated every available surface (potentially burying innocent guns?). The white-tiled floor was adorned with a number of enormous, whirring machines. As Wade watched, one device exchanged its flashing red siren lights for a filmy green, and then a Hazmat suit climbed out of a porthole in its side.

“Gwen!” Peter called, continuing to have no luck detaching himself. “Did you move the atomic equalizer?”

“Been there literally all year, Peter,” the Hazmat suit answered without looking over. Its attention was focused on a steaming Erlenmeyer flask.

“But you moved it closer to the door, though, _right_? For inspection?”

“Because it doesn’t weigh about six tons,” the Hazmat suit retorted. She set down her flask and began to remove the Hazmat suit; Peter sighed deeply before yanking at his sleeve some more. 

_{Is Dr. Parker trying to impress us?}_

**[Do you think a piano will fall on his head?]**

This query went unanswered. Instead, the helmet came off. Gwen’s sunny blonde hair, and, as she squirmed out of the suit, the legs that went on for _miles_ , immediately fit right in with Exhibit A.

_{And by Exhibit A we mean the other cute one.}_

Granted: Peter, even sharing space with Gwen, was still ominously attractive. In this, you know, owlish, unkempt, _please take me home out of the rain and love me forever_ kind of way.

**[Oddly specific scenario.]**

“Shut it,” Deadpool grumbled at his brain. 

“Deadpool, this is my colleague, Dr. Stacy,” Peter was saying, having wrestled his way to freedom. He hastened over to help her with the Hazmat suit. “And Gwen, this is the guy I told you about. Deadpool.”

“Means, ‘sexy motherfucker’ in Spanish,” Wade offered. “You’d be shocked to know how accurate that is.”

Divested of her suit, Gwen snatched up Wade’s gloved hand in a firm handshake. “Neat. Call me Gwen. Means ‘I’m on lunchbreak’ in Spanish.” 

_{If everyone is attractive and sarcastic, does that mean this ends in a threesome?}_

She threw a grinning “Peter” over her shoulder and was gone in the blink of an eye, heels clicking after her. 

_{Were nerds always this sexy?}_

**[Blame it on the MCU budget.]**

Wade was here for his weapons, though; _only_ his weapons. Peter had yet to point them out. The other scientist was eyeing the steaming flask. 

“I’m just going to assume you won’t catastrophically explode while Gwen gets a sandwich.”

“Do you want it to explode? I can help.” Wade caught Peter’s eye, intending to make with the threats, but the scientist was drowning in Hazmat suit. Wade bit back a giggle. “Let me get that.” He grabbed a handful and peeled it—outright _peeled_ ; it made a noise like Velcro—off Peter’s shoulders and neck while the scientist stared up in intense terror. “Holy shit,” Wade laughed, finally shaking the Hazmat suit loose, “Do you have a wicked case of static cling or what?”  
Peter gave a weak laugh. “You don’t know the half of it. Thank you.” He ducked his head, “For a kidnap victim, you’re very accommodating.”

“Oh, manners will get you everywhere, kitten.” Wade tossed the suit over the back of the computer chair. Peter was grimacing. Wade cocked his head. “No?”

“No,” Peter agreed.

“Too soon?”

“Not _kitten_.” Peter wrinkled his nose. His hair was still sticking up from its encounter with the Hazmat suit. Wade suppressed a smile. “Peter or Dr. Parker are good.” He clearly had no idea how nicknames worked. The severity of his eyebrows insisted the correct answer was not kitten.

“We can work on that,” Wade agreed, fumbling back to his original point. “Anyway, I don’t really remember agreeing to come play pincushion in your evil secret lab—so _you’re_ sort of lacking my tacit consent to be here and _I’m_ definitely lacking my guns. Bad vibes, Poindexter. All kinds of bad.”

“What?” Peter’s brow rumpled for a moment, then cleared with a shake of his head. “Forgive me, I didn’t explain. Jarvis, would you please unbox Mr. Deadpool’s personal items?” 

“Certainly, sir,” said the ceiling.

Distracted from Peter (seriously, who said ‘forgive me’ and wasn’t by definition an evil bastard?), Wade beamed upwards. 

“Hello, sassy invisible ceiling butler that other people can also hear.”

“Welcome, Mr. Deadpool.”

The floor tiles separating Wade and Peter slid open with a slow hydraulic hiss. As Wade watched, a glass tube emerged. Guns, katanas, and ammo, scuff marks and all, were nestled into foam pedestals within, displayed at perfect grabbing height.

How… efficient? The glass vanished back below the floor tiles.

**[Well, that’s a needlessly complicated storage system. You think that just maybe be relevant to the plot later?]**

Wade was too busy petting one of his smaller, easily frightened handguns to acknowledge the obvious foreshadowing. 

“Thor has access to a lot of the other public labs,” Peter explained apologetically. “Thor is not good with the not breaking just as I am not good with the not putting my foot in my mouth.” He winced. “So welcome to my lab?”

“Is there a holographic Millennium Falcon flying in circles over your computer?” Wade inquired, continuing to stroke his gun. 

Peter cleared his throat. “…No. There is not.”

Wade couldn’t help but notice how incredibly warm those eyes were. That had to be useful. It certainly made Wade want to do nice things for him. Peter kept threatening to achieve surely devastating meaningful eye contact, only to veer away at the last second.

**[You think it might have anything to do with the gun we’re loving up?]**

The resulting eye dance was great. Out of mercy, Wade did not lower the gun to crotch-level.

It would have been funny, though. _So_ funny.

“Is your gun, ah, damaged?” Peter asked, voice quavering a little bit.

“No,” Wade answered cheerily. “Pull up a chair, Peter Rabbit. Talk nerdy to me.” 

Still avoiding eye-to-gun contact, Peter sat.

Peter also armed himself with a cup of coffee Wade was 99% sure was empty and gripped it between them as he sat down. This defensive strategy was sure to be greatly effective. Wade flopped into his own seat, grinning and inappropriately handling firearms.

“Our treatment is basically a variant on standard proto-multivarient fragnesis-19—“ Peter brandished his coffee cup “—although you won’t be going near the fragnesis machine, so that part isn’t important to you.”

“Why not?”

Peter shrugged. “Unless you want to melt, you shouldn't.”

Wade’s eyebrows went up. Peter gave him a smile laced with just a hint of mischief—oh, was the geek trying to play the death threats game? That was cute. Wade stroked his fingertips up the barrel of his gun slooooowly—Peter cleared his throat heavily, ears going red.

“We—we make a serum,” he mumbled to the coffee mug. “The errant cellular revision cycle—well, that’s not important either. If treated, you would experience reduction in pain and tissue degeneration, and in time should see your scars vanish entirely. The cancer might take some fine-tuning, but I’m confident that we’ll be able to tag it soon enough.”

Wade’s voice came out a little strained. “Didn’t like what you saw, huh?”

Peter’s head lifted. For a tense moment he was all wide-eyed confusion. “Oh,” he breathed, tone softening, “No. Your picture is in the SHIELD database. I left your mask alone.”

Wade's rictus smile stayed in place. “So you can just make all my ugly,” he waved a hand nebulously through the air, “Go poof?” Wade didn’t wait for an answer. “You want some science to go with that fiction?”

Peter’s mouth twitched. “Can’t we have both?”

“This is neato for growing back lizard tails, or whatever,” Wade drawled through his teeth, “But I’m a special kind of snowflake, Petey. I understand the temptation to bedazzle away all the squick in your whitebread world, but I’ve shopped around for Jesus’s personal answer to this,” he brandished the gun his way, “And not that I don’t appreciate a little well-intentioned kidnap, but how about you _don’t_ volunteer? You look better without two between the eyes.”

Peter leaned forward abruptly. “We’ve already successfully tested the serum out on another individual with healing factor. It works.”

Wade found himself staring. “What, Logan let you play doctor with him?” 

“No,” Peter said awkwardly, “Actually a—a friend of mine volunteered.” Peter cleared his throat. Wade just stared at Peter. Eventually, the scientist mumbled haltingly, “I know Spiderman, kind of.”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Wade gasped, wide-eyed. “Spidey hangs with dweebs? Fo _shizzle_?”

“Ask him, not me. He, uh, holds you in relatively high esteem.” Peter fiddled with the sleeve of his lab coat, smiling up at Wade with his head tilted to hide it—Wade couldn’t devote thought to whether that was cute or not. He was going to rocket into the air. His heart was singing and the major blood vessels were performing choral accompaniment. Fuck the whole idea of the cure.

Spidey wanted to help him. _Spidey_.

“This is not a yes,” Wade said quickly, before Peter’s grin could get any more luminous.

“I’d hate for you to rush into any decisions,” Peter murmured, all photogenic and smooth-skinned. “You could ask Spiderman what he thinks. I bet he wants to talk to you.”

“I might throw up,” Wade observed.

“I’ll get you a glass of water,” Peter promised, still with that _smile_ , which then dwindled into stutter of fingers scuttling down the edge of the coffee mug, “But uh, Deadpool? One thing?”

“What’s up?” Wade was smiling so wide it hurt.

“Please stop molesting your gun.”

Eyebrows were waggled. “Shit, Dr. Parker, am I _distracting_ you?”

Peter cast his eyes downwards. “Your technique is lacking.” Wade’s mouth hung open—did shy, stuttering Dr. Parker just?—and Peter added straight-faced, “You could do better. How on earth is that going to get anything clean?”

Wade folded a hand over his mouth.

_{Uh oh.}_

**[Shit.  Not good.]**

“I have no idea what you’re laughing at,” Peter murmured, mouth curved into a wicked little smile just past the edge of the coffee mug. “You must be crazy.”


	3. Chapter 3

_{Macking on that sexy long-legs all nite longgg...}_

**[…Should probably mention the cure while we’re at it.]**

_{It’s a good thing we’re so amazing at multi-tasking, cause it is SPIDEY TIME—}_

“Or maybe you could both put a cork in it,” Wade grumbled, “What, we’re expecting Spider-man to spawn from all convenient, romantically-lit architecture now?  Save the deus ex shit for the kinky sex prompts.”

_{We like the kinky sex prompts, though.}_

**[Wade, you’re being entirely too pessimistic about the potential for this to be a kinky sex prompt.]**

“Fuck off and die,” Wade commanded.  Glowering into the dark was yielding a whole lot of jack shit. What, was all of New York on a crime holiday?  “My head is splitting.”  Oddly, beating his skull into a dumpster didn’t help.  Wade went back to rubbing his temples and speed-walking.

Ladies and gentlemen: the stage whispering.

**(He’s having feelings.)**

_(Ooooh.)_

**(They manifest as pain because we’re really great at processing.)**

_(I knew this was a kinky sex thing!)_

“Or it could be a headache!”  Wade protested.

_{I bet you’re just sad we can’t find him.}_

“Nuh-uh.”

**[Really?  Because I recall fist pumping.]**

_{And the rendition of_ My Milkshake _from the top of Stark Tower, which apparently is also not Spidey’s secret summoning incantation.}_

**[Failure number seventy-six.]**

_{We could go on.}_

 “It’s been three days,” Wade grumbled.  “No Spidey is forthcoming, New York has eaten him, and if I say I’m having a headache, _I’m having a headache_.  Don’t make me shoot myself.”

_{Pissy much?}_

**[Lost your balls to the dark melancholy?]**

_{Go on.}_

**[DO IT.]**

Snarling, Wade went for his gun.  “Shut the hell up,” Wade snapped over a muted protest, thumb fumbling back the safety.  “Try to stop me and you eat a bullet too.”

_{Quit stalling!}_

Before Wade could indicate how very much he was not stalling, though, he was sent flying.  He hit the ground and shouted as the gun was yanked from his fingers—nearly—threw a clumsy punch.  Heard an _oof_.  Take that, high school hockey coach!  Wade didn’t manage to get the gun back to the side of his head, but he did get the muzzle underneath the stranger’s chin.

And you just couldn’t be greedy with those bullets.  Sharing was caring!

“…Hi, Deadpool,” said the guy, continuing to glare down with wide, lens-protected eyes.

“Yeep,” Wade answered.

The costume was, of course, no less red than Wade’s own.  It screamed ‘dangerous’ and ‘sexy’ and ‘just try to shoot at me, go on, I dare you, easy target right here’ all at once, resulting in the choral equivalent of a keysmash.  And Wade was clearly the victim here—operant conditioning resulting in lethally sudden boners.

Only the boner happened with his chest region, where it was all warm and tingly and Wade’s finger kind of just abandoned the trigger.

 **[Quick, say something arousing!]** White ordered.  Yellow just squeed uselessly. 

“Yo,” said Wade, playing it cool as he inched the gun back away from Spidey’s less-regenerative bits.  “How’s it hanging?  Nice night.  Nice… clouds.”

**[You goddamn idiot.]**

“Right you are,” Spidey deadpanned back, “Great night for casual suicide attempts in a back alley of my city.”

“What, are you still upset about that?”  Wade snarked, in hopes of disguising his terrifyingly fluttery heartbeat; Spidey was on top of him and did he already mention the chest boners?  Because _chest boners_.  “That was like a whole five minutes ago.”

Spidey webbed the gun out of Wade’s hand while he wasn’t looking.  Wade cursed.  “Deadpool, kids play back here.”

“Seriously?  Kids play in an empty alleyway between a tattoo parlor and a tenement building?  This seems unsafe.  As a responsible adult citizen, I am concerned.”

“You’re Canadian.”

“I,” Wade said, pressing a palm over his heart, “Am a citizen of the _planet_.” 

Spider-man side-eyed him.  “Is that a good way to combat extradition?”

Wade beamed upwards.  “I have missed you intensely,” he declared, “Also your thighs, banging as ever.  10/10, would be sat on again.”

Spider-man cocked his head, considering.  “Nope.”

“Nope?”

“You want me to storm off, right?  Not gonna happen.  I already put a hole in my punching bag.  Come on.”

Spidey rolled off of him and Wade found himself being manhandled to his feet, and oh, _yes please_ with the super strength.  Made a gal shiver in all the right ways.

“Disclaimer: this chapter doesn’t get the graphic violence tag.  You can’t arrest me.”

“It’s a slow night,” Spidey said by way of reply, seizing Wade by the elbow.  “You need something better to do than kill yourself and I’ve got a minute.”

Wade frowned.  “Huh?”

Spidey shrugged.  “We’re taking a walk.”

“…The fuck?  _Huh?_ ”

 

-

 

Thus Wade Wilson found himself seated in the very bowels of hell, Spidey flopped across from him with an elbow propped up on the table.  Two cartons of nightmare fodder oozed sinisterly between them. 

Wade needed to be very cautious.  No sudden movements.  Minimal breathing.

“It’s just frozen yogurt,” said the spider to the Wade.

“ _Lies_ ,” Wade hissed, “ _It is the pretender dessert.  It lurketh and bringeth suffering on all who entertain its falsehoods-eth_.”

Spidey raised an eyebrow through his mask.  He took a bite as Wade attempted to shape multiple crucifixes with ten fingers.  It wasn’t really helping that after being dragged into the store, Wade had been shoved up to the counter and made to order his own while Spidey gazed meaningfully at him.  Accordingly, Wade was sitting down with a gigantic cup of multicolored terror, with zero idea what he’d just bought.

**[He’s wearing a _mask_.  What is even our excuse?]**

_{Excuse me?  Did you miss how insanely expressive that mask is?!}_

**[I think we tried to order an elephant.]**

Who fucking cared?  Yogurt masquerading as positive reinforcement was pure evil either way.  On top of that, Spider-man had gotten one of the lividly green spoons and sprawled into a plastic chair.  Was that a foot wiggle?  That was a foot wiggle.

_{Our heart cannot take this.}_

“I haven’t eaten here in forever,” Spidey hummed.  With his mask peeled up halfway, Wade could see his mouth staining red with the cold.  “Not that I’m obsessed with froyo or anything.  I’m not weird.” 

“You are such a fucking nerd.”

“It’s _good_ ,” Spider-man argued, and then stole Wade’s spoon, using it to scoop up some more of his fake-ice cream.  He jabbed this towards Wade’s face.  “Try it.  One bite.”

Wade valued his survival enough to know a bullet was a better fate.  Spidey wiggled the spoon. 

“Not enticed.”

_{Say you’ll do it for the vine.}_

**[Say you’ll eat it if he feeds you with his spoon.]**

“Dammit.  You’re lucky you’re hot,” Wade grumbled.  He took the spoon.  He chomped down.  He awaited ruination. 

Given time, Wade’s eyebrows knit together. 

Spider-man, to his credit, didn’t quite smirk.  “See?”

“Holy shit,” Wade said.  Belatedly, he took the spoon out of his mouth.

"Told you it was good.”

“That’s not yogurt,” Wade shook his head.  “Alternately, supermarket shelves have been invaded by filthy liar yogurts, and we should annihilate them.   _What even is this_.”

Spider-man took another bite of his order while Wade sampled his own.

_{An explosion of tropical sunshine with vanilla accents?}_

**[We are becoming tragically hipster.]**

“So, what’s up?”  Spidey gestured at the ceiling with his spoon.  “You know, with the potential head-shooting and the—”

“Let me stop you there,” Wade said.  “So.  You’re real, right?”

**[Ask him about science.]**

_{Smooth, creamy science.}_

**[Are you talking about the yogurt?]**

_{Is anyone not??}_

It was okay, obviously.  Spidey hadn’t actually been eaten by New York.

_{It would be so funny if we killed Spider-man and like, wasn’t even there!  We’d never know!}_

**[And we’d definitely hallucinate him.]**

_{Hee!}_

“Do I seem not real?”  Spidey asked softly.

“Dunno.”  Wade’s fingers drummed against the table.  “Did you sign up for some experimental superpower-altering program?” 

“Yeah,” Spider-man said, like it was no big deal.

Wade resolutely pinched himself.

**[Still there.]**

_{He miiiiight be real.}_

**[Three.  Days.]**

Spidey shrugged.  “I know Dr. Parker, okay?”

“Oh,” Wade managed, and began to bounce his leg.  “Right.  That makes sense.  Because then he’s a nerd, you’re a nerd, must have been great nerdy times.  I bet parades were held in your honor.  Nerd parades: are they real or not?  Your friendly neighborhood Spider-man is on the case!”

Spider-man had decided to return to eating until Wade ran out of air.  Wade leaned across the table.

“But consider this: Dr. Parker could be brainwashed.”

“No way,” Spidey snorted at him.  “I’d have noticed.  And nope, I’m not under mind control either.”

Wade narrowed his eyes and closed his mouth, only for it to spring right back open.  “The yogurt could be mind control.”

Spidey’s mouth pressed together.  “I was hoping you hadn’t realized.  Deadpool, the frozen yogurt gremlins have already invaded your brain.  Surrender now so that you might have peace.”

Wade slapped the table.  “But heroes never quit!”

Spidey snickered, and Wade’s ears went all tingly. 

Spider-man kind of—he giggle-snorted?  Wade’s hallucinations did not do high-quality adorable.  Wade took a breath.  After a moment he stopped tapping SOS in Morse Code on the tabletop too.

“I kind of don’t hate the Peter scientist,” Wade confessed, spooning more yogurt into his mouth.  “Even though he used wiles on me—”

Spider-man choked spectacularly on his next spoonful. 

“ _What?_ ”

“Oh yeah, totally.  You know.  _Wiles_.”  Wade waggled his fingers while Spidey wheezed.  “Because he’s hot.  Hot people do these things.” 

Spider-man sounded strangled.  “ _Gee, he didn’t mention that when he called._ ”

“If you say he’s legit I won’t shoot him,” Wade conceded.

“Yes, please definitely try not to shoot the well-intentioned civilians,” Spidey managed a little more steadily.  “Look, it’s—it’s voluntary power suppression.  For people who don’t want to shoot fire out their eyeballs.  No conspiracies here.”  His mouth pressed together for a moment.  “Deadpool, were you really going to shoot yourself?”

“I’m bonkers, who knows?”  Wade shrugged.  “And stars and garters, baby boy, sounds like there’s no conceivable way that technology could ever be misused.”

**[Especially not by the people in authority.]**

_{Never ever.}_

Spidey shifted in his seat, like maybe he thought so too, or like maybe Wade wasn’t great at changing the subject. 

“It’s all reversible until the last stage.  You get to decide whether you like the effects enough to keep them.”

**[When things sound too good to be true…]**

“Besides—if it can reduce your pain,” Spidey mumbled, “Isn’t that worth it?”

**[Depends.]**

_{Does pain-free fix psycho?}_

For a moment, Wade felt just the teensy-weensiest bit guilty.  He masked this with another bite of yogurt.  After a moment, Spidey followed suit.

"So why’d you do it?”  Wade mumbled, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on his carton.  “You have no reason to mess with your powers.”

Spidey just shrugged.  “Didn’t do it for me.”

“You trust the Avengers that much?  They need volunteers and you’re just like, sure, slap that needle on in there?”

Spidey snorted.  “Deadpool.”

“Come on, seriously.  Help a brother out here.  Because I swear, if _you’re_ a public menace, I will go show the public real menacing.  No one even ends up dead, scout’s honor.  I clearly was never a scout, right, right, but I’ll play _nice_ while I’m kicking their faces in—“

Spidey interrupted him with the very warm hand now flattened on top of Wade’s own.  “You do know we’re friends, right?”

Wade found himself very, very quiet.  Spider-man finished his frozen yogurt in this span of silence.

“…I see through your spider-fu.”

“Try new things?”  Spidey answered him, very innocently.  Wade had to laugh.

“You little shit.  You used frozen yogurt extended metaphors against me.”

“You liked it.”

“I hereby take back every nice thing I’ve ever said about you.”

_{No, you don’t.}_

**[No, you don’t.]**

“…Okay, fine, no I don’t.  But we’re still friends.”

“Deal,” Spidey said, reddened lips tilting like maybe he was struggling not to laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JESUS LETTUCE AND TOMATO I DON'T EVEN CARE HOW CRAP THIS IS ANYMORE I CAN'T WRITE SEND MY MAIL TO TIJUANA FFFFFFFF akghtkk'afg;
> 
> Edit: So I'm having a pretty hard month, and


End file.
